FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BILINGUAL EDUCATION - PAGE 2

If California's education bureaucrats knew their business, there'd be no need for the state's rebellious voters to have to use Proposition 227 to help the schools. And if California voters cared more about children than politics, there'd be no doubt about the initiative passing on June 2. Prop 227 would largely eliminate what is called bilingual education in California. Students who are not fluent in English would be assigned to English-intensive classrooms for a year and after that would be expected to function in regular classes taught in English.

Nell Gonzalez, 75, a retired employee of the Board of Education and one of the early advocates of bilingual education in the Chicago public schools, died Thursday in Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center. Mrs. Gonzalez spent 40 years in the Chicago school system. She was a teacher for 20 years, serving at four elementary schools and Crane Technical High School, and also spent 20 years in administration, becoming director of programs for non-English-speaking students in 1969.

Of the 3,954 students enrolled in Carol Stream's grade schools, 158 need bilingual instruction and receive it in a non-traditional way through a range of services that include computers and peer tutoring. Although English is the only teaching language used, Community Consolidated School District 93 offers what amounts to custom-designed programs that meet the learning needs of those pupils without taking away from their fluency in their native languages, bilingual teacher Mary Zonta said.

It began with the image of a little child, newly arrived in a strange country, sitting lost and confused in a classroom unable to understand the English swirling around him, already destined for an academic path that leads to failure and dropping out. The benign impulse, surely, is to talk to the youngster in the language he does understand, to use it to teach him the academic subjects he should be learning along with enough English to help him,...

An exchange of letters over bilingual education reveals growing tensions between Aurora Mayor David Pierce and a fledgling Hispanic political movement in the suburb. In the initial letter that sparked the debate, Rev. Mario Godinho, president of the Bilingual Parents Association, expressed the association's "concern regarding what we perceive as anti-bilingual education efforts from City Hall." Pierce vehemently denied that he and two other key city officials are opposed to bilingual education.

We've had to endure a heck of a lot of political screaming and yelling lately over bilingual education. Like many issues in this country, the two sides are far apart and unwilling to compromise. And that discord threatens to spread across the land. So I've come up with a simple solution to this problem so that we can all live like brothers and sisters. But first let's understand the complicated arguments. The people who want to keep bilingualism shout that if we don't keep it, then we're a bunch of racists who would deny needy children the opportunity to thrive in America.

Did you ever wonder who benefits when schools delay teaching English to Hispanic children, forcing them to learn most of their lessons in Spanish, instead? Certainly not the children, who often spend six or seven years languishing in so-called bilingual education programs that, according to recent studies by Mark Lopez of the University of Maryland, increase their likelihood of dropping out, make it less likely they will go on to college and depress their wages over their lifetime.

By wide margins, suburban residents oppose bilingual education in their schools and dislike a plan being considered by the Bush administration to grant another amnesty to undocumented workers, according to a new Tribune/WGN-TV poll. The survey also found that nearly half of suburban residents thought the government should reduce legal immigration. Despite such sentiments, the poll found that residents in the six-county suburban area believe their neighborhoods are becoming increasingly diverse and see that as a positive sign.

After hearing nearly three hours of often-heated public comment, the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees Wednesday unanimously approved a five-point language and culture education policy that includes a controversial plan to limit to three years the amount of time most students spend in bilingual education. Armando Almendarez, the system's head of language and cultural education, said the district developed the new policy because of studies showing that an increasing number of students are spending longer periods of time in bilingual education and posting below-average test scores on English-proficiency exams and tests such as La Prueba, which measures math and reading skills in Spanish.

California, where voter initiatives often become leading indicators of nationwide social and political change, will vote on June 2 on the bitterly debated issue of bilingual education. Much more is at stake than how millions of kids learn--or don't learn--English. If it passes as expected, Proposition 227 would end most bilingual education in California and require students to be taught almost entirely in English. That would be a major reversal of current practice, which has generally been a well-intentioned failure, costly not only in money but in irreplaceable years of children's lives.